Chapter 1665 — Severing Your Path to Attaining the Dao
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Though those men had never come to this universe, their Dao arts had been transmitted into this universe through the inheritance of the seventy-two treasure halls of the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court! Dimly, his gaze seemed to pierce through the sixteen universes of his past lives, and he saw chaos vast and boundless, and seventy-two mighty figures standing beneath their own Dao Trees! They dwelt each within the kalpa of destruction of his own universe, and though they passed through the tribulation, they were not worn away by the ceaseless birth and death of universes!
The chaos was too thick; Shen Mu could see only the forms of these seventy-two followers of the Master of the Miluo Palace, could see the light given off by the Dao Fruits hanging upon the Dao Trees behind them, but could not make out their faces. "Seventh Young Master!
" He heard voices from the past, the voices of Dao-attainers one and all, crossing time and space, crossing the great kalpa of destruction, piercing into his ears.
"You cultivate our arts, and so you fall into our grasp! " Those seventy-two overlapping voices were deafening, reaching deep into his mind: "You steal our power, and so you spin the cocoon that binds you!
" "And now you have fallen into our grasp; it is fated that you cannot attain the Dao!
" In Shen Mu's mind these seventy-two voices thundered and shook, and for a long time did not subside. In that boundless chaos, the seventy-two strode toward him, as though to walk from the past into the present, from the illusory into the real.
He stood there, and suddenly gave a sneering laugh.
Within the Primal Embryo Divine Treasury between his brows, the Jade Capital City was joined to the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court, as though it were a projection of the latter.
This was a borrowing of power, borrowing the power of the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court to raise his own cultivation realm.
To do so would surely leave hidden dangers, and so when he finished cultivating the seventy-two treasure halls, he at once alarmed those Dao-attainers who had forged the seventy-two treasure halls of the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court!
These Dao-attainers were all overlords of past universes; their divine abilities were vast and inconceivable, and the treasure halls they left behind were the contention of their powers.
So long as Shen Mu cultivated them, he was borrowing power from them, and they would sense it.
Among them were the Dao-attainer Yuanzun, who had already died in the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court, and the Dao-attainer Nanxiang Yuanjun, with whom Shen Mu had once met face to face. In the universes of the past, Yuanzun had not yet died, and Nanxiang Yuanjun had not yet settled her grudge with Shen Mu.
"You think that because I borrow your power, you can use the seventy-two treasure halls to bar my way? A fool's dream!
" In the Primal Embryo Divine Treasury, Shen Mu's primordial spirit grew ever vaster, ever stronger. "My aim is not so simple as to cultivate my way to the Jade Capital realm. " His body stood straight and upright, like a World Tree, hard and unbreakable, such that even the great kalpa of destruction could not wear it away!
Behind him the World Tree stood beside the Great Heavenly Court, as though swept by a wild wind, the fierce gale whistling, branches and leaves dancing.
His aim was to borrow the power of the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court, and use it as a stepping stone to stride into the next realm!
His next realm lay at the center of the Jade Capital City, in the great hall that loomed half-visible within that mass of chaotic qi!
That was where his true goal lay!
The great hall within the chaotic qi stood where the Lingxiao Hall ought to have been.
Having learned of the Lingxiao trap, Shen Mu was full of vigilance toward the Lingxiao and Imperial Throne realms.